Issues

THE ISSUE

In November 2012, at the fifth Conference of the Parties (COP5), countries are expected to discuss guidelines on Articles 17&18 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), containing recommendations to regulate tobacco growing. The original purpose of Articles 17&18 was to help tobacco growers diversify to other crops.

THE THREAT

The guidelines currently being discussed have taken a completely new and dangerous direction, suggesting that governments phase out the crop through absurd regulations before viable alternatives have even been identified.

By failing to provide alternative crops, the FCTC's impractical recommendations could condemn tobacco farmers, their families, communities, and entire countries to economic devastation. These proposals:
Fail to Offer Viable Alternative Crops - The FCTC guidelines are built on the misguided assumption that tobacco growing countries can shift tobacco farmers to alternative crops or livelihoods. The reality is that there are no successful alternative livelihood programmes. Alternatives may not even be possible in some tobacco growing regions because:

Tobacco can grow on soils with low fertility, such as the Oriental variety, which is best grown in arid environments.

These conditions are invariably not suitable for production of other crops.
Contrary to the FCTC's draft recommendations, governments cannot create a market for a crop where it does not exist. Efforts to do so have failed. For example:

Canada's $284 million "tobacco transition program" actually increased the number of tobacco farmers and doubled the amount of tobacco grown. Many farmers took the government money only to shift their land and equipment to relatives who kept on growing tobacco.

Despite efforts in some African countries to replace tobacco with paprika, tobacco remained more profitable and paprika demand remained considerably lower.
Include Absurd Recommendations - These impractical proposals are intended to prohibit tobacco farming by:

Regulating the seasons when tobacco can be grown, creating a de facto ban on growing tobacco during the peak periods of the year.

Limiting the land where tobacco can be grown, slashing jobs in some geographic regions that have no alternatives.

Expecting all countries to decrease tobacco growing in unison, an unrealistic plan that puts the most tobacco-dependent economies at risk.
Restrict Support to Tobacco Farmers - Cutting government or other types of support when farmers have no alternatives will have devastating consequences. Two of the current recommendations do this by:

Discontinuing government policies that support tobacco farming, such as subsidies, technical support, or tobacco promotion boards.

Preventing systems that support tobacco farming, such as direct contracts and loans, and corporate social responsibility activities.

THE LIE

That all perspectives are welcome in this debate - To date, tobacco farmers have been excluded from the debate. The FCTC's consultation process has allowed a small number of health bureaucrats to seal the fate of millions of small farmers without considering the realities of tobacco farming. This arbitrary decision destroys the FCTC's credibility because:

Only growers and agriculture experts fully understand the repercussions of these recommendations and can advise on their potential social and economic impacts.

Excluding farmers contradicts the FCTC original goals, which said, "Tobacco growers and workers should be involved in decision-making and must therefore be given adequate channels to voice their needs and concerns."